Every two years the Texas Freedom Network takes a look at the Texas Republican Party platform because, as we say around here, that platform has become a biennial exercise in extremism. For several cycles now, the platform has been co-opted by far-right activists, and each platform can tend to look like a love letter to the extreme […]
Just two weeks after the Texas Republican Party adopted its 2014 platform, the state party’s own chairman is trashing that platform’s support for so-called “reparative therapy” to “cure” gay people by turning them straight. Texas Public Radio quotes Texas GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri about the controversial anti-gay plank in the platform: “I just make the point for […]
One of the most extreme religious-right groups in Texas is rushing to defend the state Republican Party for adopting a platform last week that supports discredited “reparative therapy,” which seeks to convert or “cure” gay people. Medical experts and professional associations have condemned “reparative therapy” as abusive quackery that seriously endangers the mental health and physical well-being of those who suffer through it. The American Psychiatric Association, […]
Polling shows that most Americans oppose discrimination against LGBT people (and even support marriage equality), but Texas Republican Party leaders apparently didn’t get the memo. The Texas GOP has denied Log Cabin Republicans, a national organization for gay conservatives, a booth at its state convention in Fort Worth next week. The state GOP chairman, Steve Munisteri, confirmed […]
You’ve no doubt heard of Conservapedia, the website that bills itself as — for lack of a better term — the fair and balanced alternative to Wikipedia. The name Conservapedia should give you an indication of the kind of balance they offer. We recently got wind of Conservapedia’s chuckle-inducing entry on the 2012 Summer Olympics, […]
A Texas Republican Party official says the party never meant to include an attack on teaching critical thinking skills in the platform it adopted this month. Talking Points Memo quotes state GOP Communications Director Chris Elam as claiming that plank got into the platform by mistake: “[The chairman of the Education Subcommittee] indicated that it […]
Remember when Texas State Board of Education member David Bradley criticized teachers and scholars who were crafting new language arts and reading curriculum standards for Texas schools back in 2008? Having students actually think about what they were reading didn’t seem like a good idea to Bradley: “I’m sorry. This critical thinking stuff is gobbledygook.” Well, […]
Read the Texas Freedom Network’s analysis of the 2012 Texas Republican Party platform here. The full platform itself is here. We thought these two passages were particularly revealing. Page 7: “Homosexuality — We affirm that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit. Homosexual […]
Since the religious right took control of the Texas Republican Party back in the early 1990s, writing the state GOP’s platform has been an exercise in promoting extremism every two years. This year wasn’t any different. A Texas Freedom Network analysis shows how the 2012 Texas Republican Party turns back the clock by seeking to […]
Both the Democratic and Republican parties of Texas will meet in convention this week. Ever since the religious right’s takeover of the Texas Republican Party in the 1990s, the state GOP platform has been almost a manifesto for extremism. The 2010 platform, for example, calls separation of church and state a “myth”; insists on abstinence-only […]
